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Fossil hominids from the earlier Middle Pleistocene of Europe are very rare and the Mauer mandible is generally accepted as the most ancient, with an estimated age of 500 kyr. We report here on the discovery of a human tibia, in association with stone tools, from calcareous silts at the Lower Palaeolithic site of Boxgrove, West Sussex, UK (Fig. 1). The silt units are correlated by mammalian biostratigraphy to an, as yet unnamed, major temperate stage or interglacial that immediately pre-dates the Anglian cold stage. Accordingly, the temperate sediments are equated with oxygen isotope stage 13 (ref. 6) and are therefore roughly coeval with the Mauer mandible. The massive tibia is the oldest hominid fragment from the British Isles and provides the first information about the manufacturers of the early Acheulian industries of Europe. It is assigned to Homo cf. heidelbergensis.

The acheulian site at Boxgrove contains one of the most extensive areas of in situ fauna and flintwork yet discovered in Britain. This material is found in a complex sequence of sediments which represent depositional conditions from a 42 m sea level rise to the onset of a full periglacial climate. Excavation of the archaeological horizon has been accompanied by a programme of multidisciplinary research examining site formation processes, palaeolandscape and palaeoecological development, using sedimentological and environmental reconstruction techniques. Dating of the site is tentative as no absolute dates are available at present. However, comparative analysis with other British sites would suggest a position for the Boxgrove sequence within the Middle Pleistocene. The archaeological horizon is interpreted as being deposited towards the latter part of an interglacial or an interstadial period.

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